RIDERS TO THE SEA

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIV, Issue 20966, 19 February 1938, Page 16

RIDERS TO THE SEA

NEW OPERA DESCRIBED BASED ON SYNGE PLAY Richard Capell writes of the new Vaughan Williams opera. "Riders to the Sea,” based on a Synge play:— Less than a tragedy—for the motive of the unhappy events it tells of is no more than unlucky chance— Synge’s pathetic little Irish drama, or dramatic scene. "Riders to the Sea,” was endowed with poetic effect by the author's stylised peasantlanguage and by the winning accent of the Irish Players in the days when the theatre of Yeats and Synge was

I young. Vaughan Williams has re- ' placed that particular poetic with music. "Replaced it”—because the force of music allows the poetry of words no scope worth mentioning in the lyric theatre. Though the com- ■ poser, in setting to music "Riders to I the Sea,” has restrained himself as much as a musician could—he has I treated the text in a way comparable j with Debussy’s in "Pelleas”—the music | becomes, by music’s very nature, the i first factor. ! "Riders to the Sea,” published some I time ago, was given its first performI ance recently by student# of the Royal I College of Music, conducted tar Mal- ' colm Sargent, in the Parry Openi i Theatre —one of the notable series of j performances which Lord Palmer’s